The games of poker and pool have provided countless hours of entertainment to generations of players. Almost every variation of pool or billiards requires concentration, skill, and nerve. Excellence at poker results from a keen sense of applied psychology, combined with an element of chance. Both games regularly reward their players with drama, humor, and camaraderie with their fellows.
It is not surprising that there have been many attempts to combine various aspects of poker and pool into a single game. One example of such an attempt is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,664 to Brookes. In this patent, a pool game uses balls marked to correspond to standard playing cards. Each player or team attempts to form a "poker hand" by sinking appropriate balls, to defeat the opponent's hand. Typically, an electronic scoring apparatus detects each ball as it is potted, and displays the state of each player's "hand".
U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,376 to Garret is directed to a poker game used with a pool table. A plurality of balls, each ball marked with the face and suit of a card, corresponds to representations of the cards on a wall mounted scoreboard, the scoreboard carrying the same card markings for each player. A pushbutton under each card is manually operable to light up an individual indicated card when the corresponding ball is sunk on the pool table. A micro-processor is operable to determine the highest scoring "hand" of each player.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,128 to Emery et al. discusses a pool table designed to allow various poker games to be played using card values visibly marked on the balls and/or using plain unmarked balls. The plain unmarked balls have a unique electric name tag encoded therein which is read by an electronic reader system mounted beneath the table top. A ball mixing assembly is also mounted below the table top and there is structure for delivering specific or random pool balls upwardly through any of the various pockets of the table where they are then ejected onto the top of the table itself. An electronic circuit is connected to a computer which controls the instructions that are delivered to the various mechanical assemblies so that a variety of poker games may be played. A visual or private display is also connected to the computer to record the poker hands that are being obtained by each player.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,830,063 to Byrne illustrates a gambling game in which a collateral gambling game which can be won by players on at least one specific event occurring in the principal game, the collateral game being separate from the principal game but one when any of the possible winning events occur in the principal game, the payment to the player being calculated from the total value available for the game divided by the total number of players who bet on the specific winning event. The game gives a possibility for a large number of players to share in the success of a single player who has successfully won the main game. It may be used with various types of games including those using electronic gaming machines.
Despite their advantages, known poker/pool either fail to capture the desirable aspects of the respective games, or require relatively complex, specialized apparatus to play.
It can thus be seen that the need exists for a simple, fun-to-play poker pool game that retains the best aspects of poker and of pool, without requiring complex or expensive game apparatus.